Comment by Jeremy Smith
MELBOURNE — The Kennett government has unleashed a plan for massive restructuring of Melbourne, ostensibly to promote economic recovery but in reality giving open slather to big business. Forced council amalgamations and the rule of unelected commissioners, mega-projects in the inner city (Southbank, the Grand Prix at Albert Park), new freeways and extension of old ones, new planning codes to smooth the way for unit developers and fast-food outlets — these are the key elements in Kennett's assault on the city's residents.
These moves have spawned a large number of community opposition campaigns. Three are notable for the profile that they have gained: the Save Albert Park group, the campaign against the closure of the Fitzroy public baths and the Coalition Against Freeway Extensions (CAFE).
While these particular efforts have had some successes, they have also experienced problems, some self-imposed, others deriving from the political climate.
Arguably, the main limit on these campaigns is their exclusive character. The absence of an orientation towards open and inclusive practices restricts the numbers who can become involved. People who join campaigns, perhaps going to an organising meeting for the first time, are deterred either by the clique nature of the leading activists, the monopolisation of the campaign's leadership by political groupings which have a fixed and compromised agenda (notably the ALP) or by the lack of a serious attitude to networking or campaign building. Each of these campaigns has one or more of these problems.
Two examples illustrate the exclusive nature of some of these campaigns. The Save Albert Park committee charges $5 to be on their phone tree. The second organising meeting of the Save Fitzroy Pool group was to be held a week and a half after 3000-4000 people rallied in its support. Initially, the leadership was going to limit it to a smaller coordinators' meeting, but so many people turned up expecting a public meeting that the leaders had to hold a more democratic community meeting.
These small illustrations speak volumes about the limited outlook of some of the key activists.
Behind this outlook is a political problem shared by the three. The common thread is the role of the ALP. The political agenda of Labor Party activists has had some very important effects on these campaigns.
First, it tends to confine them to local concerns and local communities. Networking with related campaigns outside the local area becomes very difficult.
This has been the experience of CAFE, particularly where ALP members have argued consistently that the coalition should concern itself solely with the Fitzroy end of the freeway extension. Official ALP policy indicates opposition to this particular project, but not to any of the others on the table. But it is ludicrous to avoid linking up with those campaigning against the extension of the freeway at the other end.
Secondly, the ALP typically concentrates a campaign's attention on the activities of its parliamentarians, invariably at the expense of mobilising the largest number of people. This approach is unlikely to inspire communities which are in the firing line.
Finally, Labor's strategy in such community campaigns is to subordinate their claims and demands to the ALP's political agenda — and, apart from getting Labor into office, the ALP agenda differs little from that of the Liberals.
A future Labor government may enact a change in the current direction of urban development, but most likely it won't. Even if it does, the F19 will be significantly extended, Albert Park will be a race track, and the Fitzroy Pool will be long closed by then.
Campaigning broadly, in an uncompromising way, and with politics independent of both Labor and the Coalition, is the only way that we can have any chance of winning on these issues in the short term.
Campaigning with politics not compromised by Laborism is the best way to mobilise working-class people, simply because the activities of the campaign do not revolve around lobbying the ALP, or subordinate the campaign to factional manoeuvring within the party.
The Save Fitzroy Pool campaign has been thoroughly compromised by its Labor left leadership. Its opponents are the commissioners of the City of Yarra, some of whom are in the right wing of the ALP. We can only hope that this issue is not decided by secret factional wheeling and dealing and is instead resolved publicly through the mobilisation of opposition to the closure. However, this is not the direction being taken by the ALP.
People who do get involved in the actions of these campaigns display a real political commitment and often a willingness to go further than the leadership. To have any chance of reversing the logic of urban development set in train by successive Victorian governments, and fast-tracked by Kennett, community campaigns have to adopt a broad, independent, campaigning politics. Exclusivity means defeat. There can be no other outcome if these campaigns do not link up.
Perhaps what is needed is a cross-Melbourne network of activists and groupings that are resisting the pro-big business transformation of Melbourne's landscape. The organisation of community opposition to the freeway madness and the rapacious privatisation of public space could be the beginning of a long-term and much-needed redevelopment of our cities as people-friendly environments.